


wakin' up in different spaces

by wishingonalightningbolt



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Anal Sex, Everyone Is Alive, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:27:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25209952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishingonalightningbolt/pseuds/wishingonalightningbolt
Summary: The new year is not finding Derek Hale in a good position.By the end of January he's a broke grad student who got kicked out of his friend’s apartment so he could move in with his girlfriend, and that’s only the beginning; he can’t get this stupid article published, his dissertation is essentially a pile of dog shit, his advisor won’t answer his emails, he doesn’t know if he has a job next semester, and his love life (or the potential for one, as it may be) has all but shattered with the reality of moving back in with his parents.Enter dispensary-owner Stiles Stilinski, who can't wait to make Derek feel right at home back in Beacon Hills.
Relationships: Allison Argent/Lydia Martin, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Melissa McCall/Sheriff Stilinski, Scott McCall/Kira Yukimura
Comments: 23
Kudos: 313





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *blows dust off this account*
> 
> Sometimes when I'm procrastinating I get brain bunnies, I write a ficlet and I move on. This week I was procrastinating, wrote a ficlet, edited it, kept writing, edited it, kept writing, and then it wasn't a ficlet anymore.
> 
> Basically I wanted to write virgin Derek getting nailed by popular Stiles and it turned into this and I decided it was pretty good, or at least not the worst thing I've ever shared! It's longer than it probably should be because I was possessed by someone who really wanted to write Sterek and apparently I can only write one sex scene per fic, so sorry. 
> 
> If there are any people who still read TW fics out there, here's a morsel - hope you enjoy.

“Whoa, Derek?”

It’s instinct, to look up when someone says your name. So he does, and raises his head to see a vaguely familiar set of eyes in the center of a disarmingly attractive face. The guy is wearing a T-shirt and a lanyard for the dispensary he’s standing in, but Derek’s never been in here—so where has he seen him before?

Then he smiles, a little goofily, and Derek is swarmed with images of a sixteen-year-old Stiles Stilinski scoring the winning goal during the lacrosse finals Derek’s senior year at BHHS. He’s obviously older—how old would he be now, 24? 25?—and he’s filled out, broadened, matured. 

BHHS wasn’t a huge school, but it was big enough that Derek didn’t know everybody, even if he knew _of_ people. He was on the basketball team and the debate team, and he was busy most of his latter years with AP classes and extracurriculars, trying to get into a good college. But lacrosse was _the_ sport at Beacon Hills, so Derek was at least familiar with its star varsity players, which eventually included Stiles, as well as his friend Scott and, memorably, the team’s first girl, Kira. Derek’s pretty sure he’s friends with Kira on Facebook, even though he can’t remember ever speaking to her in person.

Derek was noticeable in school only to the extent that he was sandwiched between his sisters, the gorgeous Laura, who was Homecoming Queen, and the fiercely competitive Cora, who broke the track team’s mile record by nearly a minute during her junior year. He’s changed a lot since then, went to college, lived as an independent adult, mostly figured out what he’s trying to do with his life—he knew that being back in his hometown would be weird, but he didn’t expect to be recognized by a near-stranger within his first week.

“Sorry, Derek Hale, right?” Stiles says, and Derek sets down the package of edibles he was looking at. “I’m Stiles—we went to high school together. You were on the debate team with Lydia, right?”

Lydia Martin, Stiles’ girlfriend for most of his sophomore year, after a dramatic breakup over the summer with her beau, something Whittemore. That’s right, he must’ve seen Stiles every week or so when he picked up Lydia after meetings, present in a background sort of way.

Derek does the only appropriate human thing and shakes Stiles’ hand when he offers it, trying not to feel awkward about where he is. Although, it does appear that Stiles _works_ here. “Yeah,” he says, hearing his own voice over the ringing of anxiety in his ears, “that was me.”

“Small world, dude, what are you doing back in Beacon Hills?”

He smiles softly, the kind of don’t-pity-me smile he gives everyone when he says, “My dad’s sick.”

Stiles’ smile twitches, lowers its shine a little bit. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks,” Derek says perfunctorily. He doesn’t know why he didn’t lie or obfuscate, or why he keeps going. “I was in a loose housing situation, so I offered to come home for a while and be useful. Laura’s in Chicago and Cora’s in New York, but I’ve been living in Berkeley, so it’s not a big deal.”

“What about your younger siblings? The ones who were, like, on TV?”

He resists the urge to laugh. The twins were hardly out of diapers when Derek left high school, but yes, they were literally Gerber babies. “Yeah, Noah and Nicole go to an art school in LA and live with my aunt; they probably couldn’t find Beacon Hills on a map, but we go visit them a lot.”

“That’s super cool; I’m glad the Hale clan dispersed its general genius beyond our quaint town.” His smile returns in full force now, and he says, “ _I_ also fucked off and sought greener pastures, and once I found the green I returned to bring it to my people.”

Derek blinks. “You own this place?”

“Co-own,” he says with a shrug, “but you’re looking at the CFO of Tip Top LLC. Which is the fancy way of saying I got tricked into managing money forever.”

“That’s incredible,” Derek says, because it’s true. Derek’s a broke grad student who got kicked out of his friend’s apartment so he could move in with his girlfriend, and that’s only the beginning; he can’t get this stupid article published, his dissertation is essentially a pile of dog shit, his advisor won’t answer his emails, he doesn’t know if he has a job next semester, and his love life (or the potential for one, as it may be) has all but shattered with the reality of moving back in with his parents. He was hoping to ignore all of that with the help of recreational drugs, and instead has had his incredible failures blatantly demonstrated by a twenty-something wearing a lanyard. 

Stiles brushes off his compliment with a shake of his head, still grinning. “Honestly, it was dumb luck. I was freshman roommates with a guy who was getting a botany degree, and _he_ knew a TA from the program who was working on all sorts of horticultural projects, and one summer I was working on software development for an internship, and in between all of that we were college kids getting stoned and looking to fund that particular habit forever. It turns out that growing and selling weed legally has a lot of barriers to entry, so it took some time to get off the ground, but now we have a farm a few miles west of here, by the beach, and we just opened this place with the profits we made selling in other dispensaries on the coast. Anyway—”

He waves a hand absently, and goes on to explain the process of choosing Beacon Hills for the location and fighting with his partners and dealing with his _dad_ , and Derek’s brain drifts from Stiles’ words to absorbing the way he moves while he talks, the way the moles and beauty marks on his face and neck stand out against stark pale skin, the attractive slant of his jaw. The thought emerges like a taunt: could Stiles be interested in him?

“Sorry, I can kind of talk forever, and I just ambushed you out of nowhere—let me hook you up with something, what are you here for?”

This, he can handle. “Well, I’m at home so I’m sticking with cartridges and edibles right now.”

It’s almost a visible shift, the way Stiles goes into salesperson mode. Or maybe it’s more expert-in-his-field mode, narrowing in on little things to solve problems. “You ever thought about trying a dry-herb vape?”

Stiles is talkative (duh) and enthusiastic, so they move around the showroom while he details the products he recommends from other local brands, as well as the homemade edibles from their own industrial kitchen, hidden in the back of their larger-than-it-looks building. After he’s extolled the virtues of the dry-herb vape and convinced Derek to buy one, he unlocks the glass case they’re kept in and starts telling him about all the in-house strains they offer. As they’re moving through the store, Stiles grabs a few things, a box of new high-dose chocolate truffles, some lollipops in big branded wrappers with dosages printed on the side, a bag of pineapple flavored gummy rings that promises long lasting body highs. Meanwhile, he’s still talking, and Derek follows silently until Stiles is behind a counter and Derek is on the other side of it, looking at a glass case of weed.

“So, what’s your poison?”

“Uh, hybrids mostly. I’m not really that picky.”

Stiles chuckles, pulls something out of the case and untwists the cap on a small jar, extending it to Derek. “This is an indica-dominant hybrid we grow; it’s what I’ve been smoking most nights because it’s got the right balance between relaxation and total annihilation. It’s called Mangone, like mango, like man-gone, because man, I’m so gone.” He’s wearing a too-pleased-with-himself smile. “And obviously it smells like mangos. Anyway, you can try this with your new vape, but check out these new carts we got too—live resin from down in Monterey, I’m totally obsessed with them.”

In the end, Stiles has loaded a discrete brown paper bag with the vape, the edibles he pilfered from the displays, a quarter ounce of flower in a scent-proof jar, and two live resin cartridges. Derek is trying to work on the least awkward way to get more cash out of the ATM in the corner when Stiles says, “Thirty-two dollars and forty-nine cents for the vape, after our new customer discount.”

Derek isn’t exactly going to _refuse_ free products, but he feels compelled to say something. Mercifully, Stiles opens his mouth again before Derek has the opportunity.

“Consider it an investment in a future customer and a welcome package to a new neighbor, plus you can be a guinea pig and tell me what you think about everything.” Stiles looks nonplussed about the prospect of Derek walking out the door with a bag full of free weed, despite the fact that it must come to easily two hundred dollars worth of product.

“That’s very generous,” Derek says, because it feels the safest, and he takes a fifty-dollar bill out of his wallet to hand to Stiles. “Next time, you’ll let me pay.”

Stiles works on the computer for a second to complete the sale and offers him a receipt, each item apart from the vape marked out by a manager override. “Why don’t we talk about it when you come back.”

It’s probably in Derek’s head, the way Stiles looks at him when they make eye contact. He’s projecting the intensity there, the hint of chemistry. 

“And hey,” Stiles says, grabbing his phone out of his pocket while still looking right at Derek, “you should come out to the bar this weekend. We’re celebrating the dispensary opening, so I’m buying drinks for the staff all night, one of the other owners and some of my friends are gonna be there—Lydia, actually. She’s coming up from San Francisco, and you remember Scott and Kira? They’re engaged!”

Ah, right, _that’s_ why he knows they’re friends on Facebook. Not a huge engagement ring, but a romantic proposal from the story her pictures told, and she looked like she was going to burst with happiness. 

“Wanna trade numbers?” He’s holding his phone out expectantly.

Without letting himself think about it, Derek takes the phone and types in his number, saves it with his first and last name, and hands it back.

Stiles immediately begins to type. “And now you have _my_ number,” he says, and Derek can feel his phone buzz in his jacket. 

When Stiles looks up again, he looks a lot like his teenage self, satisfied and cocky. _That_ , embarrassingly, works for Derek a little too much, and he drops his gaze while he clears his throat, willing himself not to be hot for a probably-straight guy who’s just trying to be friendly.

“Saturday night, after we close?”

Derek doesn’t have the time to overthink it right then and there, so he nods and says, “Okay, text me the address.”

“Awesome,” Stiles says emphatically, “everybody’s gonna be psyched to see you.”

* * *

After already stressing about it a lot, he decides it’s silly to worry over meeting up with some people he tangentially knew as a teenager and just swallows it down with reason. Stiles is a friendly guy trying to maintain his business in a weirdly cliquey county, and it’s not as if having Derek in his rolodex would be bad for him. (Rolodex? Derek, are you ninety?) Derek, in his patheticness, wants to project romantic potentiality on everyone he’s attracted to, regardless of who they are and what they’re like. It’s probably a symptom of his urgency to shed what remains of his “virginity” and have sex with a guy.

It’s not a big deal. He had sex with Paige a few times in high school, and he had a girlfriend in college for a hot second, but his dates with guys so far have been, in a word, unsuccessful. Online dating is weird. He doesn’t just want to find a random guy, either; he’s never felt like he was ready to do something so intimate with someone he didn’t actually have romantic feelings for, just for the sake of doing it. So he waited, and waited, and waited, and now he’s twenty-seven. It’s a paradoxical scenario because he _knows_ that virginity is nothing, but for a host of reasons, it’s also one of his most poignant insecurities, not just as a queer man but as an adult in general. He wants to be having sex, but he can’t feel comfortable doing it until he’s done it with someone once, and he can’t do it with someone until he finds someone he trusts.

So it’s on his mind a lot. Especially right now with moving back home and dealing with his dad, his emotions are all over the place and his basic senses are wonky, so he has to remind himself: just because he wants to see Stiles naked doesn’t mean the feeling is mutual. Big whoop. Derek wouldn’t even be able to keep track of the number of guys he’s had a fleeting crush on—too many in a day. Stiles doesn’t have to sit in that camp of hopeless crushes; Derek would prefer they be friends actually. Especially since he owns the only dispensary in the county, and he definitely needs weed if he’s gonna be seeing his parents every day.

He’s grateful that he got his hair cut recently, so it requires little finagling on his part when he wants to look his best. He spends more time than he normally does choosing his clothes and looking in the mirror, mostly because he can hear Lydia’s voice telling him to look less like a basketball slob. With her and Laura’s tutting in mind, he wears fitted dark wash jeans and a forest green T-shirt under his leather jacket, incidentally not dissimilar from the look he sports on most first dates.

Beacon Hills has changed incrementally in the last eight years, new places popping up and disappearing every time Derek came home for the holidays, but there’s a steady block of bars on 3rd Street that will probably always be a staple, even if the places themselves change. That’s where Derek meets them, inside a not-too-crowded Irish pub just after eleven.

He sees Lydia first, which is probably not surprising. Even if her hair, comparably much brighter than the rest of the surroundings in the bar, were not long and eye catching, she’s wearing a knee-length white dress and white heels. She’s leaning against the bar mere feet from Derek when he walks in the door, and her face splits into a grin, arms opening to beckon him forward. She’s only gotten more stunning since childhood, and if circumstances were different he might be tongue-tied around her, but right now all of his anxiety is focused on projecting his modern self, his grown self, capable of being social and making friends.

“You know I wasn’t sure I was ever going to see you again,” Lydia says, bracing her hands on his shoulders when he comes closer. “Look at you, you’re a hunk, I figured college would be good for you. Come on, come on; come sit down and tell me what you’re doing now.”

The staff are largely sitting at the bar together apparently, while the others have a circular booth in the corner, around which sits Stiles, Scott, Kira, and a handsome stranger also wearing a Tip Top shirt. He’s introduced as Danny, Stiles’ college roommate and co-owner, and he shakes Derek’s hand firmly, wearing a friendly smile. Scott does the same, accompanied by a smack to the shoulder and, “Long time no see, Hale.” Kira actually hugs him, and when she pulls back she grabs onto the front of his jacket and says, “Take this off and have a drink.”

He ends up between the girls, sipping a beer he doesn’t really like, and trying to answer Lydia’s questions without sounding like a complete loser. Thankfully, Kira is endlessly encouraging, so he survives the ordeal relatively unscathed, until his glass is empty and on the other side of the booth Stiles says, “I’ll grab another round, who wants one?”

Lydia has already gone off on a different thread, so she gets up so that Derek can get around her and he joins Stiles at the bar. Mostly, he’s grateful to be done with the interrogation, but he’s also driven by the way Stiles looks at him when he offers to help, eyes wide and dark, smile teasing against his lips.

After he’s listed off everyone’s orders, Stiles nudges him. “It sounded like Lydia was trying to learn your bank passwords.”

Derek huffs out a laugh. “More or less. She hasn’t changed a bit.”

“So tell me, what are you supposed to do with a PhD in History?”

It’s a dreadfully familiar question, and Derek begins his oft-repeated answer compulsively, looking up part way through to find Stiles’ gaze below his own. Without his jacket, the short sleeves of his shirt obviously hug his biceps, so he knows that he’s caught Stiles looking and lets himself feel proud, no matter what the intention. His therapist in college recommended exercise to combat his newly acquired anxiety disorder, which meant that Derek was at the university gym three or four times a week with a textbook balanced in front of him or a lecture streaming through his headphones. He knows what his body looks like, knows that how hard he works shows without him having to say anything at all. 

With remarkable casualness, Derek manages not to stutter through the rest of his response, and he accepts two fresh pints from the bartender before promising to return for more. When they have all the drinks down at the table, they’ve rearranged, and Derek is sitting between Scott and Stiles, smothering his laughter while they shout at each other.

Soon enough, they all start talking about the people they knew in common during school, updating each other about the different stories they know and who’s gone on to do what. Kira asks him, after he tells them what his sisters are up to, “Do you keep in touch with anyone else from high school or is it mostly just college friends now?”

His best friend in school was Vernon Boyd, who moved to the east coast once they graduated and stayed there. They keep in touch online, but there’s no one left in Beacon Hills who he would actually call his friend. “Mostly just my best friend, Erica, we met in college. She’s at a program in New York now, so my social life is pretty rooted in Berkeley.”

“Well you can hang out with me and Scott any time,” Stiles tells him. “You can’t survive Beacon Hills without friends.”

He’s surprised and pleased to find that he keeps Stiles’ attention when they get to talking about their college years. Derek was cooler in college, smart and popular to a certain extent, in a crowd where his interests were valued, and it’s easy to talk about himself when it’s in that context. Stiles is equally happy to tell story after story about his young adulthood adventures, so Derek is his captive audience.

At some point Danny leaves, and most of the staff wave goodbye as they trickle out as well. A short time later, the bartenders shout for last call, and Kira, Scott, and Lydia pull themselves from the booth, giving kisses and hugs for the night. Scott says they’ll get together to shoot hoops; Lydia gets his phone number and promises to send him pictures of her dog; Kira insists she’s going to put a wedding announcement in the mail for his family. They wrap back up into their jackets and head off into the night and Derek, grateful that the night was a success, is going to go too, until Stiles sits back down and says, “My tab’s still open. Let’s finish our drinks.” He moves further into the booth, gesturing for Derek to join.

Both of their glasses are still half full, even though they last went to the bar over an hour ago. Derek feels hopelessly optimistic about the invitation, so he takes a seat beside him and boldly rests his arm across the back of the booth, not touching him, but hovering close. “It’s nice that you’re all still such good friends.”

Stiles shrugs, but he’s obviously happy. “Yeah, it is. Scott’s my brother and Lydia’s my first love. Everything major in our lives we’ve gone through together and that’s how it’s gonna be until we die.”

“Your partner seemed nice too.”

“Danny’s funny around new people, but he’s infinitely more social than our third, Meredith. She’s on an independent research trip in Iceland right now because she’d much rather deal with plants than people.”

“That partnership must be complicated, all three of you with different interests.”

“Sometimes, but it works. Now I get to talk to customers and run a business, and they get to do the science stuff that they care about. I swear, Danny only wears the shirt because I bug him about it.” He gets a funny look in his eye and he nudges Derek with an excited gesture. “Did I tell you I picked the name for the company?” He offers a self-indulgent grin. “Wanna know why it’s Tip Top?”

“Tell me.”

“Because that’s how high you’ll get with our product, all the way to the tippy top.”

Derek is moved to smile, even if it’s not all that funny. “You came up with that while you were high, right?”

“Absofuckinglutely.”

They’re quiet for a moment, just smiling at each other. 

Derek looks away first, dropping his eyes to the table, so he can’t see Stiles’ expression when he feels the other man’s hand settle on his leg, but he can hear Stiles say, “You look really stunning when you smile.”

There are a few main threads of thought that burst into existence in quick succession: 1) _I fucking knew he was hitting on me_ ; 2) _I’m already getting hard from one touch, way to go, virgin;_ 3) _oh, shit, are we about to_ —

“I think it’s kind of trashy to make out in public, so what do you say we get out of here?”

Derek blinks at him, trying to read his expression. “Really?”

Stiles squeezes where his hand is laid on Derek’s thigh, creeping ever higher. “What, you think I’m joking? Or you don’t want to make out with me?”

Making out is on the list of things Derek wants to do, but it’s merely an accompanying player, and Stiles probably knows that. “Where do you want to go?”

“How about my apartment,” Stiles offers cooly, like he isn’t making Derek’s temperature rise by the second. “I don’t have roommates, and I live next to a Dunkin Donuts.”

Derek nervously wets his lips and Stiles’ gaze drops to his mouth for a moment. “Well,” Derek says, grateful his voice doesn’t crack, “how could I resist?”

* * *

He goes to the bathroom while Stiles closes his tab, and takes that moment to put this situation through his mental balancing act. Factors include: his attraction to the guy, his general sense of trust with the guy, his physical preparedness to go forward with intercourse, and his willingness to risk disaster for the potential of sex. Things have never lined up before now—it’s never felt worth it before now.

“Here,” Stiles says when he approaches the bar, and tosses him a red and white candy wrapped in clear plastic. There’s a bowl of them sitting near the computer. “Have a mint.” He’s smirking, and he rolls his own mint around with his tongue to clack against his teeth.

Derek figures he’s probably blushing, but he unwraps the candy anyway and pops it into his mouth as he comes to lean against the bar. “My car’s here.”

“Perfect, I took a Lyft.” He gets the receipt from the bartender and slips his credit card back into his wallet. “So,” he says while he writes, “are you gonna give me a line about offering me a ride home or should we workshop it?”

His style of flirtation is—disarming. “I’m pretty sure you already gave me the line.”

“Ah, that’s right.” He drops the pen on the bar and looks back up as he slides his hand into Derek’s. “C’mon, I’ll try to come up with some more in the car.”

The Camaro his dad passed down to him when he turned sixteen sputtered its dying breath shortly after Derek finished college. It’s an unreasonable car in a lot of ways—mostly good for going fast and impressing people, and no one asks him to help them move—but it’s also sentimental, so for the first time ever at the age of twenty-three, he dipped into his trust fund to put a down payment on a new model. Even though he drives regularly he takes good care of it, and a few years later it’s still a nice-looking car. 

Stiles makes an impressed noise when he spots it. “Some things never change, huh? You know, Jackson was _so_ jealous that you had the coolest car on the lot; he spent most of our sophomore year begging his parents for a Tesla and threatening to drown himself. What a drama queen.” He leans against the passenger’s side door, pulling Derek closer. “How many people have you kissed in this car?”

Honesty is embarrassing, but he can’t really fathom how he would go forward with that particular lie. “None, actually.”

Instead of laughing or looking at him pityingly, Stiles pulls his lower lip between his teeth for a brief second, leaving it shiny and wet before he says, “I think that’s a waste.”

Derek closes the distance between them maybe because he can’t wait another second and maybe because he wants Stiles to stop talking, but either way Stiles throws his arms around his shoulders when he gets close and enthusiastically meets Derek’s lips with his own.

Kissing Stiles is kind of like talking to him. It’s overwhelming, he has to play a little bit of catch up, it’s not quite so easy to pick up on the rules of the game, and he finds himself easily whisked away. And it’s not just because it’s been a while—Derek may not be getting laid, but his dates often feature exciting make out sessions. Stiles is apparently just that good, or else Derek is so turned on that he can’t tell the difference anymore.

When they pull apart, Stiles has a hand on the back of Derek’s neck, and he leaves it there, keeping him close. “Still want to come home with me?”

Derek nods eagerly. “Yeah.”

“Get in the car.”

Stiles guides him through town from the passenger’s seat, chattering in between directions about the song that’s playing on the radio, the cool arcade they’re passing by, nothing that suggests something else is on his mind. It’s both comforting and eerie; Stiles makes him feel at ease by acting like none of this is a big deal, but it also makes him anxious that he’s way more into the thought of going home with Stiles than the man himself is. (Some of that is dissipated by Stiles pulling him in again the second he turns off the car in the parking lot, kissing him long and hard, until they both pull away panting.)

Stiles lives in one of the cheaper complexes in Beacon Hills, the ones a little further from downtown, without the rooftop pools and amenities guaranteed to moneyed customers like the Whittemores (or, for that matter, the Hales). Still, the place has a working elevator and a security desk, which makes it better than most of the places Derek’s lived since leaving for college, and he comments when they walk through the entryway of his apartment—

“I like your place.”

Stiles grins, shuts the door. “Let me show you the rest of it.”

He doesn’t exactly get a tour. Almost immediately upon shedding their jackets, Stiles has a hand on the back of his neck and is pulling him in to kiss. Derek can’t think of a reason to complain. 

They kick off their shoes and wind up sitting on the couch, which is really more of a loveseat, arms a little too tangled around each other as they make out. Stiles sinks his fingers into Derek’s hair and his other hand trails along Derek’s shoulder, stroking down his arm, like he’s appreciating every inch of him, before settling on his knee. Derek, one hand on Stiles’ jaw and the other arm holding Stiles as close as he can get in this position, focuses all of his attention on the kiss, responding to Stiles’ urgency with his own.

Neither of them seems to want to part—even when they need to catch their breath, they stay near, pressing eager lips against nearby flesh until they can meet again. Derek feels dizzy with Stiles’ attention, his confident touches and devastating mouth, and he realizes when he shifts in his effort to press ever closer that he’s hard, his cock insistently straining against his jeans, and Stiles’ hand is edging up his thigh.

Stiles is sucking on his pulse point when he pulls back far enough to ask, “Is this okay?”

Derek nods, worried that his voice will die in his throat.

“I’m not in a rush,” Stiles tells him, continuing to kiss along his neck. “I mean I have ideas, definitely, but maybe you’re more polite than I am and you don’t want to put out on the first date.”

What a joke. Derek has to bite down on the urge to say something too honest, running his hand down Stiles’ arm. “What are your ideas?” he asks. He winces as it tickles when Stiles laughs against his skin.

Stiles pulls back to look him in the eye. His gaze is dark and intense, even if the effect is tempered somewhat by his blotchy blushing cheeks. “I guess it depends on what you want.”

Right, the all-important question. This is the part where Derek gives his consent and then gets thoroughly devirginized. His voice is stalled in his throat by Stiles brushing his fingertips along the inside seam of his jeans, a tease that shouldn’t work as well as it does.

In a tone that denies the intensity of the situation at hand, Stiles tells him, “I’ll give you whatever you want.”

Derek, already hopeless, can feel it getting harder to breathe, so he just slides underwater. “I want _you_ ,” he confesses, with enough of an emphasis that he hopes Stiles understands what he’s saying.

“You want me?”

Derek swallows tightly, his arousal overcoming his anxiety. “Yeah.”

Stiles trails his hand further up Derek’s thigh, fingertips mere centimeters from his balls. “I want you too,” he says, in the same plain tone of voice, like they’re not discussing anything of interest. “I want your killer ass. I want you to ride my dick, and I want you to want it.”

The rush of heat in Derek’s body seems to emanate from his core and reach every bit of him, making him flushed and more than a little turned on. He doesn’t say _I’ve never_ , because he doesn’t want Stiles to freak out, and besides—it doesn’t matter. Right place, right time. The opportunity is almost literally in his lap.

So he lays his hand over Stiles’ and moves it away from his leg so that he can stand, pulling Stiles up with him as he heads for the bedroom.

Stiles demonstrates his excitement by pressing Derek against the inside of the closed bedroom door to continue kissing him, his hands already worming their way under Derek’s shirt. Derek can’t find it in himself to be upset; he wants to rush too. Alone, with a hot guy who thinks he’s hot, he has a list of a million things he wants to try. It’s easy, under these circumstances, to shed his clothes without thinking about it, to kiss with abandon, to touch and be touched without panic. 

Except—

When they’re on Stiles’ mattress, almost naked, he pulls away from their embrace to say, “You won’t tell anyone, right?”

He looks confused. “Like who?”

“Like your, you know, high school friends.”

Stiles smiles. “You don’t want anyone to know you’re hot for the Stilinski kid? No worries, Hale, I’ll keep your secret. We can sign each other’s yearbooks behind the bleachers when everyone’s gone.” 

Derek rolls his eyes. “I mean you’re not going to brag that I’m...easy, or something.”

“I’m not sure what that says about me, but if you’re that worried about your virtue, I promise to protect your reputation. Right after I’m done screwing your brains out.” Derek is going to come up with a retort, but he doesn’t get a chance before Stiles continues, finally pulling his own underwear down to expose himself as he asks, “So can I finger you?”

Derek nods, eyes caught on the length of Stiles’ cock, the way it rests against his thigh. “Yeah, okay,” he says, and Stiles reaches forward to pull off Derek’s glasses before meeting him in a kiss.

It’s not long before he’s naked too then, on his front with his knees spread, arms folded in front of him, while Stiles strokes tender circles around his opening with two slick fingers. His dick is trapped between the bed and his stomach, which makes it easier to ignore and also easier to relieve with the slightest bit of friction, and he floats in a strange in-between space while Stiles massages his ass cheeks and sucks a hickey on the back of his thigh, only barely penetrating him intermittently, until Derek is ready to burst with frustration. Then he slides one long finger inside of him, followed almost immediately by another, filling a space that was made wanting by his own teasing. Derek is simultaneously soothed and roused by the intrusion, and he spreads his legs further without even thinking about it, simply compelled by his own eagerness. 

“Fuck yeah,” Stiles breathes, rocking his fingers in and out of Derek with gentle, albeit firm, strokes. “You can loosen up and let me in, okay?” He drops a kiss at the bottom of Derek’s spine. “I know you want to.” 

The bold assertion—the claim that Stiles knows what Derek wants without being told, or even before Derek knows it himself—is part of what’s making Derek’s knees weak. Because Derek has probably never had this instant mutual attraction with anyone, and he _does_ want, and why the fuck does this guy need to rub that in his face? But that’s not what it is, really. It’s acknowledgment, acceptance, of Derek’s needs, accompanied by a fervent willingness to meet them. It makes Derek absolutely fucking melt, broken down into a useless husk of arousal.

Stiles fucks him with three fingers for a few minutes, until Derek has put some weight on his knees again and is pushing back against Stiles’ thrusts, actively chasing the sensations.

“No, no, no,” Derek starts to whine as Stiles pulls away. “That was good, don’t stop.”

“C’mere, sit up,” Stiles says, and Derek rolls over to do as he’s told while Stiles finds and tears open a condom. Stiles seats himself right next to Derek, their thighs pressed together while he rolls the condom down his length. “You want this?” he mutters, and Derek doesn’t have to look him in the eye to know he’s being spoken to. Stiles’ right hand curls around Derek’s inner thigh. “I know your ass wants it. All slick and empty, right? You want to feel full with a dick inside you?”

He’s embarrassed only to the extent that Stiles is saying all of this to turn him on, and it’s working.

Straddling Stiles’ lap is surprisingly empowering. It gives him a new perspective, one where he can look down at Stiles’ blown pupils and twitching cock and know that it’s because of how bad Stiles wants him. Stiles makes a pained noise into their kiss when Derek wraps his fingers around Stiles’ length, and it only makes Derek harder.

“Fuck,” Stiles breathes, fingers digging into Derek’s thighs as he sinks down onto his cock. 

It’s impressively easy, after all of the anxiety about it, but he’s comforted by the fact that he _wants_ this. This isn’t a rush or a mistake. This is his. So he can slide somewhat seamlessly up and down Stiles’ dick without fearing pain, breathing through the sparks and jolts of pleasure that accompany the new sensation. 

Stiles groans when he starts moving faster, arms now slung around Stiles’ shoulders, Stiles’ hands on his hips to keep him steady. He isn’t sure how long it takes before he feels something in his gut demanding more, but it’s an insistent kind of feeling that makes him ride Stiles with shorter, faster strokes that resonate deep inside of him. It’s instinct driving him. Even as his thighs burn with the effort, it feels too good to stop fucking himself, and he trembles as he moves, each time rewarded with the delicious feeling of friction and pressure inside, against and around his prostate, setting his nerves ablaze. 

He’s overwhelmed to say the least, frantically bouncing on Stiles’ dick as he chases every second of perfect pressure he can get, but he’s comforted by the fact that Stiles seems just as wrecked, holding onto Derek’s hips for dear life. It makes his downward strokes even more intense, accompanied by the weight of Stiles’ grip, pulling their hips flush together, so that when Derek sits with Stiles all the way inside of him, it feels like Stiles is trying to burrow space for himself even deeper, impossibly deep.

He wants to do this for as long as he possibly can, wants to chase and revel in how good this feels forfucking _ever_ , but the strain on his muscles finally forces him to slow down. Stiles makes a soft, pained noise, dropping his forehead against Derek’s chest. That works for a while, slows the building pressure to make it manageable. Derek pushes his fingers through Stiles’ hair, sweaty against his neck, and breathes with his measured rise and fall.

When Derek is nearly all the way up on his knees, Stiles wraps his arms around either of Derek’s thighs and tackles him backwards. Too weak and stunned to protest, Derek goes easily, landing square on his back. His head threatens to drop off the end of the bed, but before he can even register it, Stiles has pulled him further down the mattress and is using his grip on Derek to spread his legs and lift his hips, pushing his knees almost to his chest. It’s honestly a relief to be on his back, even if he feels a bit like a pretzel, and he’s so far gone that he whines a humiliating noise when Stiles pushes back inside in one smooth thrust.

It’s obvious that it’s over, that they're both too close to do anything but race to the finish line, so Derek finally wraps his hand around his dick and doesn’t stop himself from jerking off hard and fast. When he comes, he’s gasping for breath, trembling as his orgasm rocks through him and he’s flooded with relief and hormones. He’s so wrapped up he barely notices Stiles stuttering to a halt deep inside him, groaning like he’s dying.

He’s never felt so wrecked in his life. Beyond the physical sensations of aftershocks and muscle jerks or the effort involved with trying to catch his breath and cool his overheated body, his brain is practically mush. He isn’t even sure that he remembers his name, floating in a warm, fuzzy headspace as all the nerves in his body recover from a stupidly overwhelming experience.

Then Stiles squeezes his thigh and starts to pull out, and he’s brutally aware of his own discomfort. Besides the sweat and slick and come, just the slightest move to sit up informs him that a good hard fuck has consequences, and there’s a new weird pain in his lower body that reminds him where he’s empty and raw, not to mention how the muscles in his legs and back are strained from the sudden work out.

Even though they’re still lying with their feet by the pillows, Stiles flops down his back by Derek’s side after disposing of the condom and grabs his arm when he starts to move. “Don’t get up, dude, we’re in the afterglow. I won’t force you to cuddle but just lie here for a minute with me.”

He doesn’t think about it, just rolls closer and nuzzles his face in Stiles’s neck and is flooded with warmth when he extends his arm, welcoming Derek to fit against him.

 _Fuck_ , Derek thinks, laying his palm on Stiles’ stomach. _This is bad_.

Stiles traces a line down Derek’s spine with his fingertips, leaving goosebumps as he goes. Derek bites gently on the angle where Stiles’ neck meets his shoulder in acknowledgement, and they lie there for what, Derek supposes, is considered the afterglow. Eventually, Stiles breaks the silence by saying, “This is the hottest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Derek has to laugh. “How’s that possible?”

“What, like I’m a stud?” Stiles scoffs. “Jesus, Lydia would not shut up about how hot you are now. I don’t think you look that different; obviously you’re shredded, but you still have the glasses and the bunny teeth, and you’re just as cute as you were in high school. You guys were probably too good as friends for her to think of you like boyfriend material though, don’t take it personally.”

He really has to commend Stiles’ processing skills right now, although it seems that’s just part of his talkative nature, the sudden shift in topics, the rambling sentences. “This was…” He swallows his first few thoughts, the oxytocin-driven confessions that threaten to spill off his tongue. “I had a good time too.” _You’ve probably ruined me for all other sexual encounters,_ he doesn’t say. 

“High praise,” Stiles says dryly, but Derek can hear the smile in his voice. “No worries though, I seduced you fair and square and my ego is well-intact.” The hand on his spine trails further down, palming his ass gently, stroking the flesh there almost reverently. Despite everything, Derek’s dick twitches. “Are you tired enough to collapse or do you want to take a shower right away?”

He couldn’t sleep right now even if he wanted to, anxious over all sorts of new things, so he says, “I definitely need a shower,” and starts to sit up again.

“I’d offer to spot you, but I unfortunately don’t think we’d fit,” Stiles says with a smirk.

It’s the first time Derek’s looked at him since the most ridiculous orgasm of his life, and his heart thuds in his chest. Stiles’ mouth is pink and abused with kisses, his hair pointing every direction, and his honey-colored eyes are so soft and affectionate that Derek never wants to get up. He swallows the hormones that are making him crazy and rolls out of bed, grabbing his glasses off the nightstand and his underwear off the floor as he goes.

“There are towels under the sink!” Stiles calls after him.

He has a few minutes of solitude to process, think, _focus_ , even if he still feels a little bit come dumb when he closes the bathroom door. While the water’s heating up, he looks at himself in the mirror, his equally mussed hair and kiss-swollen lips, and thinks to himself: _I did it._

And it didn’t suck. It was actually...perfect.

 _Fuck_.

He pees, gargles with the mouthwash he finds in the medicine cabinet, and steps into Stiles’ shower to investigate his products. He avoids getting his hair under the spray and worries over his skin with Stiles’ body wash until he feels squeaky clean. His opening is too sensitive for him to risk much investigation right now, so he does his best to make sure he’s washed away all the offending fluids, all the while trying not to panic about what this means with Stiles. 

Now wearing his boxer briefs and glasses, Derek returns to Stiles’ bedroom to find he’s changed the sheets and is lying between them while scrolling on his phone, his head at the right side of the bed this time. The lamp on his nightstand is on, so he’s illuminated in the otherwise dark room. When he looks up at Derek, a pleased smile spreads on his face.

“Hey,” he says, beckoning him closer. Ever the sucker, Derek goes easily, slipping into bed with him. “Good shower?” he asks, brushing a damp piece of hair off of Derek’s forehead. 

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Anytime.” 

His hand curves around Derek’s neck, not pushing, but Derek gets the offer anyway, and he meets Stiles in the middle with a kiss, softer and sweeter than before. They stay there like that for a while—Derek’s too busy to keep track of time—just kissing, without a rush, without an end goal. Strangely, Derek finally starts to feel tired. He puts his glasses down by the lamp.

“I don’t have to be anywhere tomorrow so I wasn’t going to set an alarm, but since it’s almost four in the morning I figured you might want to.”

“That’s okay,” Derek tells him. He’s a light sleeper and after a few hours will wake up as soon as a bird starts chirping or a car horn honks, so he turns off the light and follows Stiles further under the sheets, kissing his smiling mouth. It feels a little silly, this automatic acceptance that Derek would sleep over, that their night together isn’t really over yet, but Derek basks in it anyway. What’s the harm in taking what’s being offered?

* * *

He wakes up because he can hear something buzzing. He still feels heavy, dragged back by sleep, and it takes more stimulation to wake him fully—Stiles, who was spooned carefully against Derek’s front, rolling over to reach off the bed. Derek watches blearily until his own jeans are tossed against his chest, with his ringing cell phone inside of them.

Late last night, when Stiles got up for his own turn in the bathroom and Derek was seconds away from passing out, he thought about where his phone was and where he should put it, but then he was unconscious and it didn’t really matter anymore. It apparently matters now.

He doesn’t grab the phone before the call goes to voicemail, but the screen tells him it was his mom, and the missed call notification is accompanied almost immediately by a text reading: _Just making sure you’re alive_.

It’s almost one in the afternoon. He told his parents he was going out last night, and one glance in his room would inform them he didn’t sleep there. So he tries not to feel too guilty about living his life while writing back a quick message— _Sorry to worry you, I’ll be home soon_ —and then buries his face in the nearest pillow. 

“Everything okay?” Stiles asks. His voice is rough with sleep; he lays a hand on Derek’s back, right between his shoulders.

“Jushmymm,” he grumbles, and then tilts his head out of the fabric and says, “Just my mom.” He props himself up on folded arms, dragging the pillow against his chest. Stiles is lying on his side now, and in the light of day he looks like a nude model for an art class, all long limbs and smooth lines. He’s worried that he’s going to say something stupid and fracture the moment even more, so he stops thinking and says, “Hi.”

Stiles smiles sweetly. “Hi,” he echoes. “Want to stay for breakfast? Or lunch?”

 _Yes_. “I should really get going,” Derek says as he sits up, and it’s true. “My mom has her book club at 4 on Sundays and I told her I’d—” He stops himself, fully aware of how pathetic he sounds. “I had a great time last night.”

He doesn’t know what he expected to hear in response, but it’s not, “I’d offer an encore if you had the time,” because when Stiles says it, he almost stops to check that he’s really awake. Stiles tilts his head, wets his bottom lip, and Derek is half hard. Stiles beams. “Wanna brush our teeth together? I think I have an extra in my camping stuff.”

What’s another hour, anyway?

Brushing their teeth turns into kissing against the sink, turns into stumbling back into the bedroom and kicking his underwear off at the same time. In bed, Stiles pins his hands on either side of his head and says, “I know you’re probably sensitive but do you think I could rim you?”

He makes a mess on another set of Stiles’ sheets, hunched over on his knees while Stiles eats him out. He feels weak and dizzy afterwards, but he has enough awareness to tangle his fingers in Stiles’ hair and jerk him off while he sucks on Derek’s shoulder. 

Then he really does have to leave, so he wipes Stiles’ come off with a wet washcloth in the bathroom and tries to fix his hair so that he looks less well-fucked. 

“I’m gonna text you,” Stiles says, when Derek is standing in the hall, patting down his pockets to make sure he has everything. 

Derek tries not to feel all fuzzy, but he smiles when he tells Stiles, “Can’t wait.”

It’s not surprising, given how much head space this issue has taken up over the past few years, that the drive back to the Hale house is spent reliving every second of the previous night, trying to capture details from his memory before they disappear forever. He finds himself at home on autopilot, and has to readjust himself in his jeans and focus before he gets out of the car.

Moving home is an adjustment, one that he wishes weren’t necessary for a lot of reasons. Finding out that his dad has stage two lung cancer is the shit cherry on top of a sundae otherwise made up of losing his research assistantship for the spring semester as well as his apartment. With literally nothing tying him to Berkeley, he’s ironically in the perfect situation to move home and help his mom care for his father while he goes through chemo, a scenario in which he appears like a caring son, rather than a jobless dependent. The whole situation is more than a little fucked up, and with hardly ten days back at home, he hasn’t exactly dealt with how he feels about all of it. 

He can hear movement in the kitchen when he walks through the front door, so he slips up the stairs two at a time to his room without drawing attention. Alone, he hurriedly sheds his clothes and dresses in fresh ones, applies a layer of deodorant, brushes and even puts gel in his hair, and stomps back downstairs having decided on a radical solution to his relationship with his mom: honesty.

She looks up at him when he enters the kitchen, her smile exposing the wrinkles around her green eyes. Her long, black hair falls around her shoulders, and the sides of her purple cardigan sway when she turns away from the oven to face him. “Hey, Der. Your dad’s probably napping—he just finished lunch.”

“Sorry I wasn’t here to help.”

“Don’t be silly, I’m glad you had a good time with your friends.” She looks at him expectantly, folding her arms over her chest. “So, who’d you meet up with? Vernon’s family moved to D.C., didn’t they?”

Derek nods, coming in further to sit at the island, putting the granite countertop between them. “Yeah, they did. You remember the lacrosse team when Cora was in school? Stilinski and McCall?”

“And Kira Yukimura, that’s right,” she says. “Of course I remember them. And John’s son—I really feel for him, you know. I may not be on the city council anymore but I’m still connected to the drama, and it was a nightmare when he wanted to open his store on the main road. That boy fought the forces of heaven and hell to sell weed here.”

Derek wants to be shocked, but of course his mom knows what Stiles does. Cliquey county, and his mom knows everyone with money.

“It’s nice you got to see them. Where’d you all go?”

The interrogation is framed as innocently as possible, which Derek appreciates. She isn’t demanding his answers, merely coaxing them out of him, but he’s willing to put it all to rest. “A place on 3rd Street. Stiles needed a ride home, and I ended up staying over.”

She tilts her head almost imperceptibly, but instead of prying, she grabs the plate of muffins by the fridge and sets in front of him. “Have you had breakfast?”

 _Just like a lawyer_. Derek wants to roll his eyes, but he keeps his head down while he takes a muffin and tears off a piece. “Thanks.”

“So how is Stiles then? I saw the banner on his place when I drove by, finally open for business. That must be exciting.”

“Yeah, he seems excited about it. Scott and Kira were there too, and they’re engaged. And Lydia Martin, from debate; she lives in San Francisco now.”

That seems sufficient to distract her, because they start talking about Lydia’s mother and go from there. Derek is mostly able to forget, for a stretch of time, what he was doing last night, even though the slight pain when he sits is an awkward reminder.

Preparing for book club is a familiar tradition. With occasional seasonal developments or changes and barring disasters and holidays, for the last thirty years since she inherited the house, Talia Hale makes the same food, offers the same wine, and plays the same background vinyl in her artfully decorated living room on Sunday afternoons. As a kid, Derek was usually a background kind of helper, mostly delegated for grocery shopping or moving chairs around, but as an adult he stands with his mother and helps her cook, laughs with her when she makes a joke about her deviled eggs and fights over what to play on the stereo.

Later, when they’ve wrapped all the serving platters and are making a dent in cleaning up, Samuel Hale rounds the corner with a small smile, wearing loose sweatpants and a T-shirt. “You guys sound like you’re having fun.” 

Derek starts to pull a chair out for him at the counter. “Dad, take a seat.”

“Hey, I’ve been lying down for hours,” he dismisses with a wave. “Don’t mind me, I just came to get something to drink before the book club descends. Der, if you want to avoid the madness, I was going to watch a movie in the study; you’re welcome to join me.”

“He’s going to make an appearance first,” his mom says, “so I get to show off my PhD candidate. Although”—she grabs his chin between two fingers—“you should go trim your beard before people arrive. You look a little scruffy. I need to get changed anyway, so we have some time.”

Derek doesn’t have to do much show and tell with his mom’s friends, who are largely retirees or friends from church, and he’s able to slip away without a lot of fuss. (They gush over him and his success— _a position at Berkeley, Talia, you must be so proud_ —until the conversation shifts to his sisters, as it always does.) 

The Hale house existed before California was a state. It has a long history and curious quirks, including a large study in the back part of the house, the only entryway to which is an imposing bookshelf. As a kid, Derek often sought an opportunity to find the switch that opened his mom’s secret office, only to be caught or thwarted, but now he knows exactly where to pull to pry open the door.

Since Talia retired last year, the study is mostly used for storing important documents and extra winter clothes, but there’s also a couch and a TV in there. Sam’s always been a baseball fan, so he made his own oasis away from the family where he could enjoy the games when the kids were born, and it still serves its function as a private getaway many years later.

He waves Derek over when he comes through the door. “Perfect timing, we’re just about to see the ghost.” He loves supernatural movies, but not the scary ones, only the ones that are horrifically fake and laughable. Derek must have seen every B-horror movie made since the 80s at this point, and he sits beside his father to find out which one they’re watching this time.

After a jumpscare that makes his dad roar with laughter, Derek pulls his phone out of his pocket and sees that Stiles texted him about a half hour ago: _I’m glad you’re back in BH_. 

It’s not quite honest to say that he is too, but he responds, _I’m glad I ran into you._

He’ll probably never tell this to the man himself, but Stiles is far more than he expected to find right now. It makes a mess of emotions when he thinks about it, so he puts his phone on silent and sticks it back in his pocket. The whole thing is better to ignore, since it’s not as though he can do anything about it at this moment, and he fights back the anxiety that arises from the way his heart feels light in his chest, his nerves and excitement when he thinks of seeing him again. For now, Derek will lean back and be with his dad.

* * *

His second week home is a whirlwind.

Especially since Derek’s without a job, he wants to buckle down on reading and making edits to his article while he has the time, and he was expecting Beacon Hills to be a quiet place to do that. With his parents’ house backing up to the preserve and few responsibilities to worry about, Derek figures he can spend the vast majority of his time actually being productive, but the reality of the situation reveals itself all too quickly.

Sam’s first chemo appointment is on Wednesday, so Derek and Talia spend the next few days by his side. Trying to be there for his parents and keep up with his reading means that he skirts a casual invitation from Stiles to drop by the store for a pop up event, but they text intermittently, carrying out an ongoing conversation about their days. Being in communication with him helps Derek not feel so distant, and his messages have offered a breath of relief and comfort over the weekend.

Derek isn’t exactly eager to divulge intimate family information to him, but he doesn’t want Stiles to think he’s getting blown off, or that Derek is avoiding him. On Monday night, he tells his mom he’s going to grab a drink with a friend and points his car downtown. The Tip Top storefront closes at 10, so he’s not surprised when the security guard by the door stops him at 10:05. When Stiles comes to investigate the security guard’s call, his face splits into a grin. “Hey there,” he says. “You have remarkable timing.”

As he enters, he notices that the store has a few bright decorations up, a new display in pink and red advertising Valentine’s Day products. Derek realizes with a start that Valentine’s Day was this weekend, the day he blew off Stiles’ text. He didn’t even notice.

There aren’t any other customers around, and there’s just one person shutting down the till all the way on the opposite wall. Stiles leads him behind the counter, back to an office with stark white walls and little furnishings to speak of, and closes the door. When they make eye contact, Derek wonders if he’s about to get kissed, but Stiles just slides past him and plops down on the couch, one leg tucked underneath himself. 

“So, how’s your dad?”

Derek sits beside him, shrugs. “He’s okay. He’s strong.”

“What about you? How are you doing?” 

It sounds like a genuine question, and Stiles’ expression certainly seems to suggest his honest interest. Derek’s stomach twists a few times, and he says, “I’m okay.”

Stiles smiles carefully. “It’s difficult to process. My mom got sick when I was in elementary school, so I didn’t even really know what was going on, but I know it’s hard to worry so much about the people you love.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that, but he couldn’t speak even if he wanted to because his throat is tight with emotion. It’s a vulnerable position, and Derek avoids his gaze as he coughs, trying to dismiss the tingling behind his eyes and the welling in his chest that threaten to expose him.

Stiles cups his jaw, lifting Derek’s head with his guidance until they’re looking at each other again. “Hey, I’m here whenever you want to talk about it. Or even if you just want to sit and not talk about it, I’m here for that too.”

They stay there looking at each other for a long moment, before Stiles’ eyes flicker down to his mouth. Derek doesn’t wait for the question he figures is coming, just closes the distance between them and presses his lips to Stiles’. Maybe it reveals a little too much desperation, but Derek is feeling pretty raw right now, and he just wants to be touched.

Going home with him is different this time. For one thing they drive separately, although Stiles grabs his hand in the parking lot as they approach his building, threading their fingers together. In his apartment, they go straight to his bedroom without hesitation, peeling away pieces of clothing and leaving a trail in their wake, so Derek is already naked when he lands on the mattress and thinks, _I’m gonna fall in love with him_. 

He ends up back in Stiles’ bed like clockwork after that. Evenings that Derek can get away without causing too much suspicion, he finds himself with Stiles, kissing and smoking and fucking. It’s infinitely more fun than schoolwork, and the slightest bit of guilt he feels over procrastination is easily evaporated by Stiles’ attention. Some afternoons Derek drops by the store and if Stiles isn’t busy they flirt across the counter for twenty minutes and make out in his office for another ten before Derek goes home. It’s a system that Derek can’t believe he gets to be a part of, so he’s cherishing it while it lasts.

He gets a message from Kira late in March and he’s so paranoid over her contacting him that he fumbles his phone onto the ground before he can open the notification _._

_Hey, long time no see! I’m wondering if you could help me out with something - Scott and I want to surprise Stiles for his birthday next weekend, so we’re hoping you can help us get him to the bar without him knowing. Maybe we could grab coffee and talk details? Let me know!_

Shit. His birthday?

Stiles added him on Facebook a few weeks ago, and when he goes into his page, sure enough his birthday is listed. Next Sunday, in ten days, Stiles turns twenty-five. As Derek muses over his discovery, he figures Stiles doesn’t want it to be a big deal between them, or maybe he thought it was still too far away to tell him. Either way, he resolves not to be paranoid about why Stiles didn’t say anything about his birthday and writes back to Kira. He’ll obviously help.

It’s easy actually, convincing Stiles to let Derek pick him up at work the following Friday night and take him out for a drink. Stiles kisses him in the car, and Derek only lets himself lean into it for a second before he turns on the engine.

“Are you sure you want to go out?” Stiles asks, palming the back of Derek’s neck. “It’s pretty late.”

Derek can’t imagine how pissed the girls would be if Stiles never showed up to his own birthday party. “C’mon, let me buy you a drink.”

There’s a lot of jumping and screaming when Stiles arrives, but after the initial madness, Derek is swept into a booth and given a beer. He catches up with Scott for a while, is stolen away by Lydia for even longer, and finally ends up back in the car with Stiles, right where he was a handful of hours ago. Only this time, they can keep kissing. They don’t have anywhere else to be.

Birthday sex isn’t notably different from everyday sex, Derek finds, but there’s something exciting about it anyway. Tonight Stiles was the center of attention, and in the end, Derek got to take him home and unwrap him. It feels like a funny kind of a win, to go home with the guest of honor, and there’s a glowing sense of pride in his chest as he tries to prove his worthiness to Stiles.

They’ve been muttering through the afterglow for a few minutes when Derek asks, “Why didn’t you tell me about your birthday?”

Stiles doesn’t look surprised, just sad. It flits across his eyes in a moment and disappears. “You’ve been so stressed, I didn’t want you to think I expected anything.” He lifts his hand from where it’s pressed against Derek’s chest and brushes his knuckles gently across Derek’s cheek. “I would’ve told you eventually.”

“When I got the Facebook notification.”

“Yeah, probably,” he laughs. “Are you upset?”

“No, I just…” He swallows tightly, doesn’t know what he’s going to say. “I’m glad I got to celebrate with you.”

Stiles grins, turns his head so that he’s hiding half of it in his pillow. “Me too. Will you celebrate with me again on Sunday when I’m actually twenty-five?”

“What do you want to do?”

“How about we stay home, watch TV, and order take out?” Stiles offers. “Only I have a strict no-pants policy I’m afraid you’ll have to follow.”

Derek grins like an idiot. “That sounds doable.”

* * *

They spend almost every night of the next seven weeks together. He can hardly believe the time has gone so quickly, and the end of May signals the end of the fuzzy daydream he’s been living in. Stiles has been asking him about different events every day since the Beacon Hills summer social calendar went online, but Derek’s skirted each invitation to accompany him to things around town, and it’s not just because he feels all gooey and weird about their relationship. Sure, the beginning of summer in Beacon Hills means _everyone_ is seeing each other on a habitual basis and obviously presents a complication if they’re trying to be subtle in public, but there are other stressors associated with June’s arrival. 

For Derek right now, summer is a terrifying prospect because it means they’re drawing ever nearer to fall, to the big question mark that is September, and a lot of his free time is spent on the phone with his advisor, with people in his department, trying to secure approval for his syllabus and confirmation that he’s going to be teaching, not to mention actually working on his lectures and trying to write a better outline for his dissertation. The closer they get to the semester, the guiltier he feels about spending time with Stiles, and the more he convinces himself that their whole thing has a looming deadline. Plus, his dad _looks_ sick now, in a way he didn’t before, and he knows he needs to be there for his mom even more.

Stiles doesn’t push him. He still texts regularly, even as they see each other less frequently, and if they know they aren’t going to spend the night, they start talking on the phone when Stiles closes up the store, checking in while Derek takes a break from his work. It’s weird at first, but Derek gets a lot of comfort from hearing his voice, and even after several days apart his enduring warmth for Stiles burns insistently in his chest. He’s made of a mixture of feelings, wants, and imagined impossibilities, desperate for Stiles in a dozen different ways, terrified that he won’t be able to have him.

“You haven’t seen Stiles in a while.”

Derek is grateful that he’s already swallowed his sip of coffee when his mother speaks. He looks up at her across the kitchen counter from where he sits with his caffeine and computer in front of him, fighting through another round of editing as the moon comes up, and finds her grinning the grin of women who know everything. He’s seen the same look on Lydia. “Yeah,” he says, nonchalant. “I’ve been working a lot the past few days.”

“You know, this is your house too, Derek. You can invite him over here.”

He can feel the heat on the back of his neck that warns him of his blush. “That’s not happening.”

“What, because you’re embarrassed by us?”

“Because we’re not really dating,” he admits with a frustrated huff.

Talia is quiet for a moment while she blows on her tea. “Well, I’m not entirely sure what that means, but the point stands. You’re an adult, and your room is your room, so you can have guests over, as long as you’re being smart.”

He isn’t sure how to process his mother giving him permission to bring sexual partners back to his bedroom, but luckily he doesn’t have to come up with anything to say in response.

“You shouldn’t feel bad about spending time with him—or anyone for that matter. You’ve always put relationships second, you know, after whatever the grander goal was, and then suddenly it seemed like you stopped dating altogether. I haven’t heard you mention anyone in years.”

It’s not an exaggeration. 

“And I thought, _well, that’s fine, he can focus on his studies, as long as he’s happy_ , but.” She sits up and reaches across the space between them, hand covering Derek’s. “I’ve never seen you happier than you’ve been these past few weeks, even with everything going on.”

He pictures his mother fretting over her sick husband while Derek was off getting laid. Guilt strikes quick and painful, threatening to choke him, and Talia squeezes his hand again.

“And I’m so glad, Derek, I _want_ that for you, no matter the circumstances. I’ve been so relieved that you have Stiles to spend time with—he takes a weight off of you. Derek, seriously.” When he meets her eyes, she’s looking at him with a focused expression. “You should go be with him if he makes you happy. More importantly, don’t stop seeing him because you think you’re not allowed to be happy.”

The shift is pretty monumental, for as small as the moment is. He doesn’t know if it’s the permission or the recognition or just motherly love, but it feels like a vice has been released in his chest, freeing him from the uncertainty and dread that lived there, the shameful guilt that’s kept him second guessing. She’s right. He wants to see Stiles. 

He squeezes her hand back. And then he goes upstairs to pack a bag.

When Stiles opens the door, he gets halfway through his sentence before Derek cuts him off with a kiss: “Hey, I thought you were still working on—” He makes a sweet humming noise, kissing Derek back instantly. “Nice to see you too.”

Derek’s honesty spills out before he can stop it. “I missed you.”

Stiles’ smile looks like sunshine, and Derek has to capture it to keep forever, so he lifts Stiles off his feet to carry him down the hall. “Good thinking,” Stiles laughs. “We don’t have much time to make up for the past few days if we want to maintain our average. Hop to it, Hale, ravish me.”

He plans to do exactly that. And, even though they hardly slept at all, Derek knows he’s going to spend the day with Stiles too, as soon as he wakes up to Stiles snoring against his armpit. He can’t leave, not after only a few hours together. So he texts his mom before he nudges Stiles awake, eager to go back to reacquainting.

Several hours later, after they’ve ordered pizza, had a lot more sex, and almost broken their necks trying to take a shower together, Stiles comes out of his bedroom wearing clean jeans and a pink-hued button-down. Derek is on the couch in his underwear, and he asks, “Are you going somewhere?”

“ _We_ are going somewhere,” Stiles informs him, coming to sit beside him. “Five years ago this week, John Stilinski said _I do_ to Melissa McCall, and they’ve requested the honor of our presence to help them celebrate.”

“What?”

“It’s their anniversary party,” he says with a sly grin, well-aware that he’s managed to trap Derek into bumping against a social event. “And look at that, you have clean clothes packed already and everything.”

Derek stifles a groan, drags his hand down his face. “Are you sure I should be going?”

“You have to come. I want you to come.”

“I don’t know,” Derek sighs, unsure of what Stiles expects from him. “I don’t want to intrude.”

“You’re not, I’m inviting you. C’mon, it’ll be fun!” Stiles insists. “Food and drinks, Scott and Kira will be there, and—” He presses a kiss against Derek’s shoulder before he says, “We can fool around in my childhood bedroom. Do movie posters and sports jerseys do it for you?”

He’s very persuasive. 

The backyard of the Stilinski-McCall house is crowded with a few dozen people, few of whom Derek recognizes right off the bat. Luckily, he’s not really expected to mingle with everybody, and he gratefully shrinks into a corner with Kira while Stiles disappears to take care of things. The party itself is kicked off with a toast from him and Scott, which means that they’re flooded with attention afterwards. Derek sits on a plastic folding chair and finishes a third flute of champagne while he and Kira debate the best time of year to get married and don’t bother to hold their breath over when their dates will return.

Finally, Stiles appears again and holds out his hand. “Hey, sorry to keep you waiting. Come meet my dad.”

John Stilinski seems intimidating from far away, but up close he looks like an older version of Stiles. There are a few differences, of course, his jaw is more slender than Stiles’, and his eyes are a light ocean green, but Derek can see the resemblance the same way he sees his mom in the mirror. In school, the man was an imposing force, the iron-willed Sheriff you didn’t want to have to cross, who wasn’t willing to let a bad guy get away and couldn’t be bought or corrupted. He was friendly with Derek’s parents at some point—he vaguely remembers dinner events and tea parties—although it was probably when his mom was on the city council, when Stiles’ mom was still alive.

He looks almost amused when Stiles and Derek stop in front of him, like he’s biting down on a smile. With a warm voice, empty of any hostility that Derek could’ve feared, he says, “Derek, how nice to finally meet you in person,” and holds out a greeting hand

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Stilinski,” he says, and accepts the man’s handshake with a solid grip.

“Call me John,” he says. When Derek goes to drop his hand, he finds that John’s fingers are still clenched around his own. His voice changes, a little more sarcastic, teasing, “Did I ever get you in trouble for anything? I don’t remember a lot of kids from when Stiles was in school.”

“We didn’t really know each other,” Stiles cuts in. “Dad, are you trying to break his wrist?”

It doesn’t actually hurt, but John releases him anyway, wearing a wry smile not dissimilar to one often sported by his son. “So, Derek, what are you supposed to do with a PhD in History?”

Once the introductions are made and the tension’s been broken, talking to Stiles’ dad is surprisingly easy. Maybe John’s going easy on him, or maybe he’s more relaxed because Stiles is by his side, ready to jump to his defense. Either way, he keeps his head for the course of the conversation and is relieved (but not that surprised) to find that Stiles’ dad is kind and smart, just like his son. 

Stiles slips away for a minute, promising to return with drinks. After a second, John clears his throat and says, “Stiles told me about your dad.”

It’s probably the last thing Derek expected him to say, and it catches him off guard enough that his throat tightens, leaving a silence between them.

John goes on, “I’m not a gossip, I know your mom would’ve told me if she wanted other people to know. I just wanted to say—we’re around. She doesn’t have to go through this alone. None of you do.”

It’s so matter-of-fact, none of the hushed tones and shameful whispering that accompanies cancer. It’s a neighbor, a friend, offering to go to the grocery store, to come over with a movie, to be there without asking anything in return. Derek runs through a dozen responses in his head and comes up with, “Thank you.”

John smiles, elbows him gently. “What should we pretend to be talking about that will embarrass Stiles?”

Derek distantly wonders if ADHD is genetic.

As Stiles nears, three bottles clutched between his fingers, John announces, “And that’s how I found out Stiles liked men.”

Derek startles into a laugh, honestly surprised by his sense of humor.

Seemingly _un_ surprised by his father’s behavior, Stiles shakes his head, handing them each a beer dripping with water from the cooler. “That sounds like a fun conversation.”

“My first clue should’ve been all the action figures, honestly.”

“Okay, I’m gonna take Derek far, far away from here now,” Stiles says dramatically, and his hand fits into Derek’s once more, like it belongs there.

“Don’t be a killjoy,” John laughs. “I should probably go find Mel anyway.” He takes a sip from his drink, a familiar mischievous look in his eye. “But I was just saying to Derek, your things are kind of scattered all over Stiles’ place,” he says, gesturing with the bottle in his hand. “Are you paying rent now?”

“Hysterical,” Stiles coughs. “You should leave.”

“Stiles,” Derek warns.

“He knows I’m teasing,” John continues, smiling with ease. “Seriously, we’re really glad that you came tonight. Melissa and I like to know the people in the boys’ lives.”

Derek swallows past the lump in his throat, nodding politely. “Thank you.”

“Don’t wander far. Have another drink. Just keep your hands where I can see them.” John rewards himself with a boastful laugh, clapping his hand against Derek’s shoulder before he heads off towards his wife.

And that’s when it hits him, right then, why he’s here. He doesn’t fit here, shouldn’t be here, but he’s here because Stiles asked him to be. He’s here because they’re dating.

The thought is so absurd that it makes his heart skip a beat, and he wants to tell himself not to jump to conclusions, but—it’s true. They text constantly, eat together, sleep together, and Stiles gives himself in every kiss, every touch, never holding back with him. The distance he’s imagined between them, the impossible space where Stiles could love him back, is exactly that: imaginary. Here, in front of all of his family and friends, Stiles wants to hold his hand and show him off. He isn’t a late-night escapade or short-term adventure. Derek is...his boyfriend.

When he glances over, Stiles is looking at him, wearing a nervous smile. “Sorry, he thinks he’s funny.”

Derek blinks. “We’re dating.”

Stiles’ smile grows, amusement sparkling in his eyes. “Well, yeah. As long as that’s okay with you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He laughs, steps forward so that he can wind his arms around Derek’s middle. “You have a lot on your mind. I decided to be patient and let you figure it out.”

Derek fits his palm against the small of Stiles’ back, bringing him even closer. He doesn’t even care that there are several dozen strangers surrounding them, unembarrassed in his excitement. Now that he knows he’s allowed to do this, he wants to reap the benefits immediately. “Since when?”

“Hmm, I would say since we started having the best sex of my life, but I’m not picky; you can choose our anniversary if you want.” Stiles’ eyes look back and forth between his, a degree of intensity betraying his off-the-cuff nature. “I know things are tough right now and I’m not going to rush you, but I wanted to tell you—I wanted to say—”

Derek can’t remember ever seeing Stiles flustered, searching for words.

“I love you,” Stiles finishes. “Just so you know.”

(The next morning, Derek wakes up in Stiles’ childhood bed, still on top of the covers, and kisses him insistently. “Wake up,” he says. “I love you.”)

* * *

His parents get used to seeing Stiles. Derek gets used to waking up beside him in his own house, to having breakfast with him _and_ his parents. They trade nights back and forth without keeping track, wind up in one bed or another, and Derek stops feeling anxious about it.

He spends the fall semester driving an hour both ways to campus, but he’s mostly just happy to have a job, and the commute isn’t that bad given all the good things that come with Beacon Hills. He gets to fall asleep next to Stiles every night, gets to be his plus-one to everything, gets to drag him up to campus in a nice shirt for a department event and brag about his business-owner boyfriend. On Halloween they go out with Stiles’ friends and take pictures in coordinating costumes; on Thanksgiving their families come together in a jumble—McCalls, Stilinskis, Hales—and stuff their faces.

They find out Sam is in remission in December, after a long hard year. In January, Derek officially moves into Stiles’ apartment, even though most of his things had already migrated there by themselves. He teaches on campus three days a week, but his other days are spent in Stiles’ office at the dispensary, working near him, eating lunch with him, taking breaks for make out sessions between tasks. 

One morning in February, he wakes Stiles up with breakfast and coffee, accepts his morning-breath kiss happily. Stiles sits up against the pillows, wearing a sleepy smile and gathering the sheets around himself as he asks, “Is this because of the fun Valentine’s Day sex? I appreciate the food seduction, but really, all you have to do is ask.”

“It’s been a year since I realized I was falling in love with you,” Derek tells him, and watches as Stiles’ eyes soften. “Happy Anniversary.”

“You jerk,” Stiles laughs, shoving Derek’s shoulder. “ _I_ was planning our anniversary for July!” He leans forward, careful not to jostle the tray, and kisses Derek again. “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to celebrate today?” he asks, brushing his fingers tenderly against Derek’s beard.

“I wanted to surprise you.”

“I don’t have a gift for you.”

“You know I don’t care.” He can’t stop himself from kissing Stiles again, again, again. “Wait, what’s happening in July?”

“What? Nothing. Keep kissing me—or, better yet, tell me how you knew you were in love with me while I drink my coffee and eat my pancakes.”

Derek grins, settling into bed beside him. “Well, I’m pretty sure it started when I saw your dick.”

_fin._


	2. my heart was meant to last more than the night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an optional epilogue from Stiles' POV, short and sweet

They’re faded and making out lazily when Derek tells him, “You were my first.”

Stiles is really fucking baked, so it takes him a second to absorb what he thinks he heard. “Your first what?” he mutters, but goes back to kissing him before he can respond, more focused on sucking his tongue than talking.

A few minutes later, Stiles on his knees in front of the couch, between Derek’s spread legs, sucking his dick. Sucking dick while high is  _ awesome _ , so he’s taking his time, mouthing along Derek’s length, licking the taste of him from the tip, until Derek is shaking, his hand tight in Stiles’ hair.

“You were—” He sucks in a breath, swears. “You were my first guy. My first time with a guy.”

No one loves the sound of their own voice more than Stiles, but talking is kind of low on his to-do list right now. All the same, he can’t help his reaction when Derek speaks, jerking upright with a furrowed brow.

Derek looks blissed out, turned on, fucking delicious. He also looks really high, and Stiles has a feeling that the edible they split is hitting him pretty hard. 

“Are you okay?”

Derek blinks, licks his lips. “Yeah.”

“Do you want me to stop sucking your dick so we can talk about your buttsex virginity?”

“Uh.”

Stiles doesn’t sigh, but it’s a near thing. “Do you want me to finish sucking your dick and  _ then _ talk about it?”

Derek’s gaze drops pointedly to his mouth. Fair enough.

They’re in bed a lot later when they finally get back to it, in the dark under the covers, with Stiles curled around his back, pressing soft kisses between his shoulders. “Do you want to talk about it now?”

“I don’t know why I told you that,” Derek admits, mostly to his pillow. “It’s not a big deal, obviously.”

“What do you mean,  _ obviously _ ?”

“Just that—it hasn’t impacted our sex life, so it’s not like it matters.”

They’ve been together long enough now that Stiles understands Derek is really asking a question. He’s checking with Stiles:  _ it doesn’t matter, right _ ?

“C’mere.” He squeezes where his hand is spread on Derek’s hip. “Roll over and look at me.”

He does, and Stiles hurries to kiss him, deeply, emphatically.

“I’m crazy about you,” he whispers, like the words will escape from the moment if he says them too loudly. “Whatever happened before I got to you only matters to me as much as it matters to you. And also, I think it’s ridiculously hot that I’m the only guy you’ve fucked, and I’m really glad you wanted to tell me.”

Stiles is still up long after Derek has gone to sleep, staring at the ceiling. His chest is full of swelling emotions and his stomach is swarming with butterflies. It’s not that Derek’s confession was a big deal—he meant what he said—but the ensuing interaction has had a startling effect on him. Since his love for Lydia evolved into their weirdly-close friendship nearly a decade ago, he could’ve sworn he’d been “in love” with three other people. But there’s hardly anything recognizable about those loves in the way he feels for Derek. His love for Derek feels like a part of him, a piece that lives deep within him and emanates from his very core. It’s consuming. All-encompassing. He can see, with frightening clarity, what their lives look like together, their families, their future.

They haven’t talked about it, but if they officially started dating during his dad’s anniversary party, his anniversary with Derek would be in the middle of July. Another six months away. It’s a long time, and they only just moved in together, but there’s an itch in the back of Stiles’ head that he knows won’t go away, an idea that will fester and grow until it bursts forth with unknowable consequences.

He has to ask Derek to marry him.

* * *

He sits on it for another month, before he breathes a word of it to anyone else. It actually demonstrates remarkable restraint on his part, because it’s the first thought he has in the morning and the last thought he has before he goes to sleep, but he still doesn’t know if he’s being crazy or not.

Since he was five years old, there’s one person he goes to first when he has a questionable idea. 

“What would you say if I told you I wanted to propose to Derek?”

“I would say you can’t get married before us or Kira will literally kill me. Also don’t tell me you want to propose  _ at _ our wedding, because that’s cheesy as fuck and I’m not down for it.”

“Ew, no—and how would I propose at your wedding when you haven’t set a date?”

“Ouch, dude. Ouch.” Scott is quiet on the other end of the line for a second, but Stiles knows he’s thinking about the question, stalling for time. “I’m not saying this because I don’t like Derek—we all like Derek, even Mom and Dad—I just feel like I have to ask, what’s the rush? He’s still in school. The store’s barely out of its first year. There’s no hurry.”

It’s true, but it’s not really the point. “I know that, but I also know there’s never gonna be a perfect time. And I’m ready to lock it down. I’m ready to put a ring on it.”

“Fair enough. When?”

“I was thinking July.”

“Oh, so you have tons of time. Why so far away?”

“It’s kind of our anniversary. Plus, he hopefully won’t be teaching all summer so we could maybe go away for the week together if he says yes.”

“ _ When _ he says yes,” Scott corrects confidently. “You really think there’s a chance he’d turn you down?”

“I don’t know, I think he dislikes the idea of living in Beacon Hills forever.”

“And you’d never consider living somewhere else? I gotta tell you, man, that’s kind of unrealistic. Once he has his degree, there’s no guarantee that there’s a job for him here. At some point, he’s probably going to have to move again to find a position, and what, you’re just gonna break up because you like your apartment too much?”

Stiles doesn’t have a good answer for that. He never really thought about it. Derek’s still got time in his program but Scott is right—eventually he’ll apply for jobs at universities all over the place. Who knows where they’ll be living in five years? Odds are, not Beacon Hills.

“Wow,” he exhales.

“Obviously you’ll always be connected to this place; our parents live here, so do Derek’s, and you can always leave the store here, even if someone else manages it when you can’t. But if you’re serious about Derek, you can’t expect to stay in your hometown forever, because he definitely won’t.”

* * *

The next person he asks is Lydia, who looks at him from his phone screen and says, “Kira will kill Scott if you get married before them.”

“That’s what he said.”

“Ugh, well at least he’s aware.” From what he can see of the background, she seems to be sitting near a large mirror in...a spa? Or maybe a bathroom? She looks normal, although she’s not wearing lipstick yet. “What’s the hurry? You don’t want to wait until he’s done with school?” She sets her phone down on something to prop it up, and Stiles can see most of her upper body now, see her in front of a counter, sitting on a small stool in a vague room with tile on the wall.

“No, I don’t want to wait. Where are you?  _ Your _ bathroom has blue tile.”

Lydia smirks, almost proudly. “You remember how I told you that I met that French guy at work, the rich one who does all the European contracts?”

“I do.”

“Well, I also met his incredibly sexy daughter, who I recently learned actually does archery as a hobby.  _ Archery _ , Stiles, like she’s royalty. And she has a penthouse in San Francisco,” she gestures around herself, “so I’ve been staying over here pretty regularly.”

“And you’re in the bathroom because?”

“It has the best WiFi connection—I’d be a mess of pixels if I left this room.” She turns to look over her shoulder slightly. “Oh, hold on, I think Ali’s gonna come in.”

As if on cue, Stiles sees a dark-haired woman appear in the left hand corner of the screen, just over Lydia’s shoulder, and she sheds the robe she’s wearing to step into the shower, out of frame. Lydia doesn’t get up to leave the room or move in any way, so Stiles clears his throat and says, “Wow. Uh. Good for you. Does she speak English, or?”

“Barely any, but my French is good enough. I kind of never want her to learn, actually. She looks so cute when she can’t understand what someone’s saying.”

Stiles huffs out a breath. “Okay, so we’re not talking about me and Derek anymore?”

“You’re the one who asked where I was, Mr. Needy,” Lydia reminds him. “If you want my honest opinion, I don’t think you’ve been together long enough. You need to go through more shit together before you know you’re ready to be committed, and I think if you’re not prepared for that it’s gonna be worse because you rushed it.”

“What if I  _ am _ prepared for that? All the shit? Derek’s making a lecturer’s salary and I’m working sixty-hour weeks while the store barely makes a profit—and need I remind you about his father nearly dying?”

Lydia shrugs, nonplussed. “You asked. You’re in love with him, obviously, and he’s in love with you too, but we both know that’s not enough to sustain a marriage. I just think there’s no reason to commit to that right now before you’re both really ready.”

* * *

They spend his twenty-sixth birthday with the family, which includes Talia and Sam Hale this year, gathered in John and Melissa’s backyard in the chill spring afternoon. Later in the evening, when Derek is inside saying goodbye to his parents, Stiles shifts closer to Danny and says, “I think I’m ready to propose to Derek.”

Danny’s never pulled a single punch with him since the day they met. It’s one of the reasons they work as a team, because Stiles has big ideas that Danny tries to translate into reality, and it means he’s brutally honest, direct, unwilling to waste time with half-truths and obfuscation. He opens his mouth and says, “Does Kira know—”

“Yeah, I get it, I’m stealing their thunder, that’s not the point. What do you think?”

“Derek’s great,” Danny says with a nod. “You guys have a great relationship.”

Stiles waits. “But?”

Danny shrugs. “I don’t know, I guess I just don’t see why you need to do anything more than that. Just be together and forget the rest of it.”

“How incredibly unromantic of you, Danny,” Stiles sighs. 

Derek walks back outside with a blanket, which he offers to Stiles. Stiles is already wearing his jacket over his hoodie; he’s driving home later, so he doesn’t have a beer to keep him warm. Derek helps him spread the blanket over his legs, leans in to kiss him softly. “You seemed cold,” he says, and Stiles kisses him again, heart thudding happily. 

Derek pulls back to sit down as Stiles says, “Thanks, babe.”

He loves the way Derek blushes around others, embarrassed by Stiles’ affection. He wants to embarrass Derek like that for the rest of his life. 

* * *

For months, all anyone’s had to say to him is that he hasn’t thought enough about what it means to be married to Derek, that he’s rushing, that he can’t be sure yet.

He’s pretty sure he’s never gonna get tired of Derek’s ass. He should put  _ that _ in his vows.

“What are you thinking about?”

Derek is looking at him over his shoulder, waiting. Behind him, dick in one hand and Derek’s hip in the other, Stiles feels his heart throb in tempo with his lust. He rubs himself patiently over Derek’s opening. “Just how you look really good with your ass in the air.”

Derek scoffs, but it turns into a breathy moan as Stiles pushes inside. He arches his hips back eagerly, and Stiles gives it to him, just as desperate as he is.

He can imagine doing this with Derek forever. Well, not  _ this _ specifically, but the broader situation, their relationship. The way they understand each other, and everything that means. It’s like when Derek calls on his way home to see what Stiles wants for dinner, or when Stiles takes the morning off to spend another few hours in bed with his boyfriend, reminding him how hot he is. Then there’s the practical things: Derek is handy while Stiles is useless with power tools; Stiles can socialize with a rock and solve any problem without escalation while Derek is known for rubbing people the wrong way; Derek can help their kids get into good schools, and Stiles can teach them how to raise hell. But more than anything else, it’s just the little things about Derek, the frustrated look on his face when he’s working, how the tips of his ears turn red when he’s embarrassed, the sound of his voice before bed when they’re still saying goodnight.

Yeah, he’s pretty sure he can put up with that forever. Forever sounds good.

* * *

He plans half a dozen ways to do it, and each time something stops him. First, Derek gets food poisoning at a food truck and spends the night in the bathroom. Then, Stiles somehow loses a huge check in his office at the store and cancels their date to tear the room apart. A week later, Melissa calls in the middle of dinner because Scott broke his leg trying to stop a dog from getting hit by a car. After that, they’re interrupted by Derek’s advisor and his sudden new tactic of sending an email every ten minutes until Derek responds. And then the next time he sets a date to romance Derek, he ends up in a bad mood because he had to fire someone, and they spend the night together on the couch getting high.

So he stops worrying about it for a second, takes the pressure off of himself and decides that he can enjoy being with Derek without having to plan for the next step. The next night that Derek’s completely free, without the threat of sudden responsibilities, Stiles takes him out to a nice dinner. At home, they open a bottle of wine. When it’s empty, they leave their fancy clothes on the floor and crawl into bed.

He remembers this movie when he was a kid, something his parents loved and laughed uproariously at. Only bits and pieces of it stick in his mind but he can picture a scene late at night, in bed, where lovers shift between sheets, whispering in the dark, and the man offers the woman wearing his shirt the engagement ring in its box, uncertain how to say the words. Stiles always thought it was pretty romantic, the intimacy of the moment, and imagined himself in that scenario a hundred times.

So when Derek gets up and puts on his glasses some time later, intending to go to the bathroom, Stiles can see it happening, right here, right now.

“Crap,” he exhales. 

The ring is hidden in his work bag, which is still in the living room, and he’ll have to walk past the bathroom to get to it. He’s not exactly James Bond, but he manages not to trip on his way down the hall. Then he hears the toilet flush, and he scrambles to yank the box from his bag before sprinting back towards the bedroom and practically diving under the covers. Extremely smoothly.

Derek switches on the lamp on his side of the bed when he returns, settling back in with a kiss pressed to Stiles’ lips. “This was fun tonight. What made you want to go out?”

Stiles’ heart, still not having recovered from his athleticism, flutters excitedly. This is it. “Actually, I was trying to think of a way to give you something.” The box is a beautiful dark wood with a glossy finish, a secret hint at what it holds. When he pulls it out from under the blanket and offers it to Derek, the man definitely looks surprised. But, he doesn’t say anything yet, just looks up at Stiles when he takes it, like he’s waiting for more. Mouth dry and gut clenched, Stiles says, “Open it.”

He ordered the rings online, from a local artisan who carves and engraves them. There’s two wooden rings in the box, nested in a silk pillow, one of which is dark and clearly streaked with the grain of the wood, while the other is a much softer brown, almost honey-colored. 

With silence to fill, Stiles’ tongue can’t help itself, and once they’ve sat there for a moment staring at an open box he starts talking: “I didn’t want to put a date or anything on them and I wasn’t sure that there was anything super romantic I could write, but I put my name on the inside of yours and your name on the inside of mine, as if we need to remember who we’re married to. Um. Right, so, will you marry me, I guess?”

Not exactly the movie-worthy proposal he’d wanted to offer, but he thinks he got the point across. 

Derek says yes.

Much later, after they’ve finished celebrating, Derek lays with his head pillowed on Stiles’ shoulder and says, “There’s no way I’m not telling everyone that your proposal ended with  _ I guess _ .”

Stiles is way too happy to be upset about that right now. “That’ll be a good story. I can follow it up with how you didn’t realize we were dating for six whole months.” 

“Nice one.”

“Would you rather be Stilinski-Hale or Hale-Stilinski? I think it’d be hilarious if I introduced myself as Stiles Hale-Stilinski.”

“Your name is hilarious either way.”

“Ouch, alright, I see how it is.”

“I like Stilinski-Hale,” Derek says quietly, fingertips tracing an invisible pattern on Stiles’ sternum.

Stiles feels like his heart should float right out of his chest, but somehow it stays put. “Yeah, me too,” he says. “Stilinski-Hale it is.”

“Our kids should have short first names, or they’ll never be able to fill out paperwork.”

“Deal. I like Ian for a boy and Rey for a girl.”

“You’re not naming our daughter after a Star Wars character.”

“Hmm, I bet I can change your mind.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "High" by 5SOS - it took me forever to title this bad boy, but so I just scrolled through the lyrics for the latest 5SOS album until I was happy. 
> 
> See you again in another few years.


End file.
